


Bloodied Hands and Restless Hearts

by adrift_me



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Corvo the Black, Corvo the Black verse, Drabble, Gen, High Chaos Corvo Attano, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 00:50:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14557260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrift_me/pseuds/adrift_me
Summary: Have they ever seen him without blood on his coat?Prompt: Billie's and Hypatia's thoughts on Corvo who was Low Chaos during the rat plague and turned High Chaos in DH2





	Bloodied Hands and Restless Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Filling another lovely prompt, really enjoyed this one! I made a call for dark Dishonored prompts, and the suggestions are very inspiring.
> 
> [Come chat with me on tumblr :) You can also send me prompts!](https://a-driftamongopenstars.tumblr.com/ask)

Have they ever seen him without blood on his coat?

There has not been a day when the iron-rich scent of blood did not fill the room. It is always there, ever present. And it is not new to the inhabitants of the Dreadful Wale. Billie has lived in the stench of it for years when she ran with Daud and the Whalers. To Hypatia it is what her job smells like, ingrained into her sensory memory, a reminder of all the patients she had to bleed.

But what of Corvo? Both Billie and Hypatia wonder. Neither has known him when he roamed the streets of Dunwall, but they are perfectly aware that not a single person died at his blade. What has changed, what has clicked in his mind that Karnaca now swims in its own guts?

He talks to them, and he could be like any other person. Intelligent, calm, serious. There is an air of nobility and yet simplicity of a man who has known the lowest life. His hands are rough, but they carry the burden gently. How can Corvo be so peaceful and bring nothing akin to peace?

Sometimes he reminds Billie of Daud. Not in the fatherly way of support, but in the way how there is no remorse in his eyes. A body is just a body, and what is another man’s life when you can trade it for the Empress’? Or for money. Or both. She has seen it all.

Hypatia pities Corvo. Her kind heart sees great deep wounds where no one else seems to notice. There are cracks in his demeanor through which ache and grief seep. But Hypatia knows there is someone who gathers all that pain and holds Corvo together. She can’t quite place who it is, but the distinctive feeling never leaves her senses.

The rats that seem to always occupy the lower deck take a liking to Corvo. He lets them lick the blood off his fingers, that which has dried and didn’t wash off on the way to the boat. Sometimes Billie wonders if he too can talk to them, the way they dance before his feet like a puppet master’s toys.

They don’t fear him, but they fear what he may yet become. Kindness woven into certainty that he is right, that it is his right to protect, creates dangerous men. They don’t avoid him, but neither do they let Corvo close to their secrets. He never learns Billie was there to help assassinate the Empress, never learns that Hypatia misses being Grim Alex, even if she barely remembers it. Those are terrible kinds of secrets.

But he has a secret of his own. Who would have thought that the last time Hypatia and Billie saw Corvo, they have faced the Emperor of the Isles?


End file.
